


Death in Life

by Yeah_Toast



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, Gen, Merlin Has Magic (Merlin), Original Character Death(s), merlin has a hard life, rough childhood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:00:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22872898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yeah_Toast/pseuds/Yeah_Toast
Summary: Merlin has always been haunted by death.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 29





	Death in Life

The thing is, he never means to kill. Death just seems to follow him. His mother never talks about his father, but he knows that she thinks he was captured and killed by the knights of Camelot, that he would of survived if he had left sooner, that he would have left sooner if she hadn’t had morning sickness, not that they had known at the time that it was merely pregnancy causing her illness. Hunith never blames him, but Merlin has always known that if it weren’t for him his father might have escaped the purge.

During his second winter, two other little boys, born the same season as him, sicken and die. Their mothers never quite forgive Merlin for surviving. Hunith never tells anyone, not even Merlin himself that surviving doesn’t mean he never died himself. When he is seven years old, a slave trader attempts to take him from the woods outside the village. Merlin’s magic acts instinctively and later his mother finds him crying next to the body of a man no one in town recognizes. They never talk about it. Merely four years later he is playing with Will, and the tree they had been climbing climbed breaks and crushes Old Woman Merriam's house, taking her with it.

The townspeople begin to shun him after that, thinking him cursed. Will is the only one who stays in contact, besides his mother of course, and for a while, it’s enough. For a while the only deaths in town are natural, expected. Then Tomas kills himself and Merlin is accused of sorcery and driven out as a result.

Camelot is no better than Ealdor, death is the very first thing he sees and simply existing puts him at risk of being executed. He feels haunted by the spirits of those long gone, even before he finds himself killing on purpose for the first time.

When he kills Mary Collins, Merlin cries for all that is lost. Not just her, but his hope for a future in which he belongs. He has killed his own kind now, in favor of the king who slaughters them, death is his tail, and he will never be free of it. Now the only question is when it will take him instead of the innocent.

Working and living with a physician doesn’t help. It feels as though for every man they save another dies. Somedays, Merlin wonders how Gaius stands it, if he even feels anything anymore or if he’s numb to death. He wonders if he will be numb by the time he’s that old. He both hopes he is and that he isn’t.

Then Will dies and Merlin realizes he will never be numb. Instead, he’ll feel every death as an assault upon his exposed nerves. He feels raw and vulnerable and broken as Will lies for him. Will claims his magic, and Merlin hates it more than ever. He doesn’t care what the dragon says about destiny. What good is power if all it brings is harm?

The return of the unicorn Arthur kills helps some, but not enough. For all that he’s glad there will be no more consequences, that for once those around him all live, he can’t help but wonder why the dead only return when it’s Arthur’s mistake. Why do they never return for him?

Then the Questing Beast bites Arthur and he learns that he can control who lives and dies, but it isn’t worth it. Saving Arthur almost lost him Gaius and his mother, and it does lose the world Nimueh. For all that he hates her, he mourns the loss of the last true High Priestess. The world will never be the same.

For a short while, Merlin can live not only with himself, but with everything else as well. He’s content with his magic, with his understanding of who lives and dies, and he simply enjoys Camelot. He does love his adopted home, and seeing it without the tinted perception that comes with the curse of death is nice.

Then comes Freya and love and loss. Things are not okay for a long while after that. Everyday Merlin is forced to swear to himself that he won’t tear it all down and build something different, new. Killagarah promises that he doesn’t need to; Arthur’s time is approaching and he will do all of that himself.

Of course, that’s all before Killagarah is released and destroys half of Camelot himself, despite his own argument that Arthur’s time is coming. Then Merlin meets his father and watches him die and he can’t help but feel that he has come full circle. Briefly, he debates killing the dragon, but Killagarah is all he has left of his father and he’s just so damn tired of death.

He sends Killagarah away and buries the knights they lost. Some days he feels he never stops burying knights after that, particularly with the immortal army that strikes Camelot, and later Lancelot sacrificing himself to close the veil.

When Uther dies, both by his hand and not, Merlin wants to scream. The death of the man itself is almost reassuring after so many years fearing discovery, but the context of it is rage inducing. For once, he is angry enough to kill Morganna himself; killing Uther will only turn Arthur against magic, especially since he had finally turned to it for help.

Loath though he is to admit it, killing becomes easier after that, or at the very least it doesn’t preoccupy the mind the way it once did. He isn’t racked with guilt when he kills Agravaine. He knows the man helped Morgana in her attempts to tear apart the kingdom and the three years of peace after are well worth the violence.

It’s the first time in a long time he hasn’t felt the pressure to kill. Then Mordred is wounded, Arthur asks him if he should let magic back, and he finds himself back to making the same impossible decisions as before.

For once he wills a man to die before it goes wrong, and the gods allow him to live. Everytime he sees Mordred he is reminded of what the boy will do, and what Merlin himself tried to do. Even saving Gwen from Morganna’s control is tainted by this, and Merlin wonders how he ever felt as though he was in control of his own destiny.

When his magic is taken, Merlin knows, for the first time in his life, that the curse of death isn’t truly related to his magic at all. In fact, unless he gets it back soon hundreds of men will die in service to Arthur when he could stop Morgana from killing them all. Recovering his magic seems to prove this, as Merlin sends warning in a dream of the secret passage Morgana plans to use in their final battle. 

Death has been his companion for so long, but this time Merlin does not allow it to frighten him. He sends Aithusa away, and then draws on the depths of his power, striking down the men who would dare attack Camelot. He embraces the death that has haunted him since his youth and he forces it down upon his enemies.

Then he finds Arthur, dying at Mordred hands and the rage he feels settles in his bones. He has lost so much, too much, over his lifetime. He will not lose Arthur too, not yet. Not now.

Casting both his mind and his power back, Merlin remembers the Saxons crumbling beneath the lightening of his power, remembers all of the lives he has taken from Mary Collin to bandits to Uther to the Saxons. Then he pushes all of that, magic and memories alike into Arthur and watches as his King heals before his eyes.

Death shadowed him for so long, but now looking at the life it has brought Merlin cannot feel anything but grateful.


End file.
